Of course I knew I hadn’t finished this long road trip! Ack… but really, Mokihana, 17 months without and still not pau? Sheesh! And leaving AFK waiting for pīpī photos!! Inconceivable!!! Auē to da max. And at an exciting part, too.
Pīpī intensive for AFK!
So Iʻm gonna make that right. So here goes.
Last time, we were looking down into the city of Lewiston, Idaho, right at the top of a steep hill.
Ack!! So for the past 5 days I was at the beach with my Gathering friends, and we had a fabulous time. One of my friends asked me about my blog, so I pulled up one of my recent posts, and OMG. It had a whole bunch of ads on how to reduce stomach fat with the most ugalee drawings of belly fat! I was horrified. I had no idea that you folks were seeing that kind of junk on my blog. So just now I upgraded my blog site to eliminate all that junk stuff. Now you won’t have to see them anymore. I’m always logged into my site, so never ever saw them. Now you won’t, either. I mean, really, who needs to see exaggerated drawings of belly fat, anyway?
Yeah. Let’s look at dis kine stuffs instead.
Three and a half weeks pass…
I can drive now!! I started on October 9th, a month minus a day post-op. Amazing. It felt great, though I kinda overdid it three days later driving too far, but with no lasting results. Mostly my knee was tired and stiff. I can now drive myself to the gym, to The Gathering, to knit group on Saturdays, and physical therapy. Freedom for me, freedom for Nolemana. He’s been absolutely fabulous getting me to where I need to go but now has more time for the stuffs he needs to do.
And ten days fly by…
I’ve been working really, really, hard in physical therapy and with my exercises at home. And it’s paying off. I saw my surgeon’s assistant on the 21st, and she removed the dressing on the incision and swapped it out for Steri-strips. She showed me the x-rays they’d taken of my new knee so that I could see what it looks like now. Absolutely fascinating. I won’t post the photo here; no like gross anybody out. But you know, no wonder it hurts…there’s a bunch of metal in there! Best of all, she said I could hemo the compression hose!!! I was so happy!! They were were a pain in the ʻōkole! Oh yeah… and she confirmed that there’s such a thing as surgery brain. I could tell that all my cylinders weren’t firing quite right. It’s ‘way better now, though. Megan told me that she was really pleased with my progress; she’d wanted at least a 90° angle on my bent knee, and my PT told me the day before it was 115°!
I’m still here. I made it through. Right now my days are taken up with exercises. And more exercises. And physical therapy. Then turn around and do it all over again. Nolemana has been absolutely fantastic, helping me with almost everything.
I forgot I took so many photos in the hospital. Better living through chemistry, yeah?
Last Tuesday afternoon I had a pre-op appointment with my surgeon and his assistant, who’ll be in the OR with him. That made surgery seem really real. By the time we were pau with the appointment, traffic on I-205 would’ve been awful going home, so Nolemana and I decided to stay in Vancouver and have dinner at Patrick’s Hawaiian Cafe, my favorite local kine food restaurant. I figured that comfort food would help ease my way into surgery on Monday.
Ack! Two weeks from yesterday I’m going in for a partial knee replacement surgery. And I’m feeling kinda nervous about it. I’m glad I get to have a spinal instead of general anesthetic. I’m glad I have a fantastic surgeon and a great medical team. But I’m still kinda sked.
I’ve been working hard at the gym to strengthen my legs and knees. Cuz my left knee isn’t the greatest, either. No ACL in that one. It’s gonna need (kneed???) surgery, too. See what happens when you’re fifteen years old playing tackle football back home in Mānoa Valley and you get tackled by a kid twice your size? We didn’t wear protective any kine. Those were the olden days, right? Sheesh. Continue reading
